Etymology

asperity

as·per·i·ty
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Today it means: The quality of having a rough or uneven surface; roughness, unevenness; (countable, chiefly in the plural) a protruding or rough area or point on a surface; a protrusion. Full definition →

First used 1981Middle English asprete ← Old French aspreté ← Latin asperitātem
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The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European · derived from*h₂esp-“to cut”
  2. Latin · derived fromasperitātem
  3. Old French · derived fromaspreté
  4. Middle English · inherited fromasprete
  5. English todayasperity

From Middle English asprete, asperite, from Old French aspreté (modern French âpreté), from Latin asperitātem, the accusative singular of asperitās (“roughness, unevenness; fierceness, severity; harshness, sharpness; acidity, tartness”), from asper (“coarse, rough, uneven; bitter, fierce harsh; rude, unrefined; etc.”) (probably from Proto-Indo-European *h₂esp- (“to cut”)) + -itās (a variant of -tās (suffix forming feminine abstract nouns indicating a state of being)). The spelling of the English word is influenced directly by Latin asperitātem. Doublet of asperitas.

First known use, by meaning

  • from 1981 A section of a fault line with high friction, such that there is no movement along this part of the fault except during an earthquake.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.